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Editorial
The Right to Self-Defence
This week,
India's
Supreme Court has given an interesting judgment, one with which we
have no problems in agreeing. A division bench at the apex court
said since the world is struck by terrorism and mafia and citizens
often face grave threats, the right to self-defense automatically
means the right to kill someone when the situation is life
threatening and one is confronted with an imminent unlawful
aggression.
The one thing
that the Supreme Court is utterly against is for a citizen to turn a
coward and run away. Nothing is more degrading to the human spirit
than to run away in the face of danger, the bench comprising
Justices Dalveer Bhandari and A K Ganguly said. It laid down a
10-point guideline on right to self-defense, under which a person
cannot be accused of committing a crime even if he inflicted mortal
wounds on the aggressor.
Now, since the
Supreme Court has seen the wisdom, one hopes that soon
India's
executive class also will see things in the same light. That may
help some people understand why brave men and women died defending
the sacredness of the Akal Takht, the sanctity of Sri Darbar Sahib
rather than throw up their hands and walk out to meekly surrender.
We also agree
with the Supreme Court's caveat that such argumentation must not be
used as a tool to settle scores or enmity. It also did not approve
the use of force in excess of what was warranted to avert imminent
danger to the life and property of the person exercising the right
to self-defense.
But then these
are lessons that are a part of a Sikh's mental furniture as he grows
up. To take a stand and confront the aggressor, to refuse to run
away like a coward, to stand up for dignity and self-respect are
values that a Sikh does not wait for a Supreme Court to interpret
for him. Such is the cultural wealth formation in a Sikh's life that
what takes years for Indian courts to interpret and lay down as law
is something that Sikh kids learn before they even become aware of
where Supreme Court is.
But will
India's rulers
learn from such a ruling why vast swathes of Indian population are
fighting against the aggressor state? Why the tribals armed merely
with rudimentary arrows and bows are taking pot shots at the mighty
Indian nation state? Why are Manipur students snubbing New Delhi by
keeping shut the schools and colleges for months?
“The citizen, as
a general rule, are neither expected to run away for safety when
faced with grave and imminent danger to their person or property as
a result of unlawful aggression, nor are they expected, by use of
force, to right the wrong done to them or to punish the wrong doer
of commission of offence,” said Justice Bhandari writing the
judgment for the bench.
“The right of
private defense is thus designed to serve a social purpose and
deserves to be fostered within the prescribed limits,” it said. When
can one resort to his right to self-defense? “A mere reasonable
apprehension is enough to put the right of self-defence into
operation, but it is also settled position of law that a right of
self-defence is only right to defend oneself and not to retaliate.
It is not a right to take revenge,” the bench further said.
The tribals
bracing for
India's
Operation Greenhunt are not doing so for taking revenge. They are
merely exercising a right to self-defense available to only one
facing imminent danger. If, as the Supreme Court says, mere
reasonable apprehension is enough to put this right into operation,
then P Chidambaram has done so already. As has the Prime Minister by
describing the poorest of the poor as gravest internal security
threat.
If it is
unrealistic to expect a person under assault to modulate his defense
step by step with any arithmetical exactitude, then surely the many
aberrations in struggle for self respect can be explained by
arithmetic handicaps of tribals who only know that two plus two make
four. Unless
New Delhi
handles the calculator.
20
January 2010
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